That the distinguished jurist should revise one of his most controversial decisions is perhaps testament to his integrity
Richard Goldstone is one of the most distinguished international jurists of his generation. A hero of the anti-apartheid left for his judicial dismantling of South Africa's racist laws, he also worked as chief prosecutor at the international criminal court in the Hague. His reputation for independence of mind and integrity has earned him admirers around the world. Now 72, he has been called on to add legal lustre to United Nations-backed commissions of inquiry and courts examining conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Argentina, Iraq and Gaza.
That such a distinguished figure should revise one of his most controversial decisions has inevitably focused attention on his judicial past. It is a testament, perhaps, to Goldstone's sense of responsibility that he felt compelled to recant his opinions about the 2008-09 Israeli invasion of Gaza in public.
Born into a South African family of Jewish descent, he studied law at Witwatersrand University and graduated in 1962 in an era of racist repression. As a student, he campaigned against the exclusion of black students. On becoming a barrister, however, Goldstone chose to specialise in corporate and intellectual property law. When appointed in 1980 as the youngest supreme court judge in South Africa, he was already known as an opponent of apartheid. Liberal lawyers had advised him to work against the system from within. His rulings on white reserved areas rendered the Group Areas Act, a bulwark of segregation, almost unenforceable.
After subsequent service at the international criminal court, Goldstone was asked in 2009 to head a four-person team investigating allegations that Israel had violated international human rights during the Gaza incursion. Israel refused to co-operate formally. The fact-finding mission's report accused both the Palestinian group Hamas and Israel of war crimes and of deliberately targeting civilians. Israel was infuriated.
"Goldstone's recantation comes in the wake of several UN follow-up reports that have said the Israeli investigatory system is working fine if slowly," said Malcolm Shaw QC, senior fellow at the Lauterpacht centre for international law, Cambridge University. "Israel's supreme court has a very good [legal] reputation and the UN reports said that the military prosecutor [who is investigating Israeli soldiers] is subordinate to the attorney general.
"I assume that Goldstone was working on the back of all that. "A lot more information has come out from Israel and he may have felt his initial report was a bit precipitate. I believe that his recanting has taken a lot of courage. He always made the point that the [Gaza] investigation was a fact-finding mission and not a judicial inquiry. I can't think of any other case where this has happened … Goldstone is a man of integrity and independence. Those who have praised him for that have to take the view that he's still independent and still has integrity. It's the easiest thing in the world to stay silent; to come out in this very public fashion is a brave act."